Day at the Beach

Here I tried to capture a typical day at the beach for me when I was a kid. The preparation and the drive there seemed to take so long because we were excited. We'd spend all day there, leaving only at dusk, and I'd always get a sunburn even though my mom slathered sunscreen on me.


Morning started slowly,
as we threw yesterday's potato salad
in a red Igloo cooler, cramming
bags of towels and swimsuits
into the green '66 Volvo station wagon.
Roads like time stretched
through watermelon fields and cabbage rows
that met in the distance,
and we watched for white dunes
until salt burned in our nostrils and we swore
we heard the rush of waves
above the engine's roar.
Gray castles ruled coquina kingdoms,
but we ate cold fried chicken
and greasy orange soda,
faithful subjects in a fiddler-crab's demesne.
Treasures lived in warm tide-pools
when the sun dipped low,
and we hunted crawling stars
and followed the shallow, rippling seas
until they dried up,
and red coals burned across our backs
from the West,
and we went home.